


Cycle

by HVK



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Age Difference, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Loss, Older Woman/Younger Man, Romance, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 07:46:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1810747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HVK/pseuds/HVK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patterns repeat, moving in their own cycles. Princess Bubblegum knows this. She loved Shoko for the short time she had. She loves Finn the human, dear and precious to her. And only after burying Shoko's body does the pattern make itself clear, and a little peace find her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cycle

**Author's Note:**

> Written shortly after I first saw The Vault, when this idea seemed quite a good idea. (Not to mention it spawned the rather appropriate 'Everyone is lesbian for Bubblegum' gag in the Tumblr side of the AT fandom. Heh.)
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Adventure Time; Adventure Time is owned by Pen Ward and Cartoon Network.

Princess Bubblegum is old.

Older than her people knew. Older than most kingdoms thought.

In the nature of such things, few people bothered to think too much about what she had been, where she had come from.

Linchpins and focal points tend to not attract too much mental attention. Those who know _of_ them think of them, and then think no more; the thought of a world before them is strange, because it is a world without them, and its not something that comes easily to anyone too used to them.

So, they know she's old. but they don't know _how_ old. Not that she's old enough to remember a time before Ooo had kingdoms or young empires or anything rising out of the chaos like points of light in a vast and terrible darkness. To remember when 'human' didn't mean legends dripping in blood and flames that burned everything it touched.

She knows, though. She remembers.

She remembers _everything,_ and one might think that it is a wonder that her heart (or what ever it is that pumps the fluids through her jelly insides) has not already broken.

Probably it has already. Too often for her to notice anymore.

* * *

_The first time Bubblegum smiles in her presence, Shoko smiles too. It's a little clumsy, a little awkward, a little crooked; like she doesn't really know how smiles are supposed to work. Bubblegum wonders when the last time anyone has ever smiled at Shoko was._

_She wonders if anyone ever has._

_"Why are you so nice to me?" _Shoko_ asks. It's plaintive, pleading; 'why is this happening to me?' her tone asks. 'Nothing turns out this good for me! Ever!' her expression says. 'Please don't let me mess this up!' her shaking stance says._

_Bubblegum has an affinity for broken people. For lost things. For fixing what has been hurt._

_"Because you're my friend!" Bubblegum says, as if it were obvious._

_Shoko looks stunned. "You're... not gonna bug out on me?"_

_"No way!" Her tone is firm, authoritative. Bubblegum feels free around Shoko; like she could be a kid again, be free, be calm, just be herself without having to act tough like she does a lot of times._

__Shoko_ 's face flickers. For a second, she looks like she might say, 'Please don't go away too," or "I'm sorry," but she doesn't. She just smiles, and she says, "Thanks."_

_It's soft, it's quiet._

_Bubblegum's throat closes up at this. There are things she could say, should say-_

_She can't. She smiles, hoping that is enough. She's too scared to say what she wants to. She thinks that she'll have time, later on._

_A few hours later, Shoko is dead._

* * *

Princess Bubblegum notices things. She notices a lot of things. Like how curious it is that so many of the creatures in Ooo have a certain humanity to them. An arrangement of two arms and two legs on a central trunk. A similarity of basic anatomy, biological compatibility, so that hybrids are so common that often you can tell a thing's parents by studying where  _this_ creature met  _that_ goblin's features, flowing like political boundaries on a map from ages ago.

She notices, and knows.

She knows that things work in cycles.

* * *

_The boy smiles up at her, and she smiles back, with that smile she uses when she's doing political stuff. It's not a real smile, but it can pass pretty well._

_The boy frowns. He says, "You look weird right now. Smiling hurts you or something?"_

_"Huh?" She shakes her head. "I don't... no! I mean-"_

_"Smiling's good for you," the boy says reassuringly. "It puts the bright-jams in your heart-guts!"_

_She goggles for a moment at him, and then she laughs long and loud and happily, like she hasn't done in a long time, she's just been so busy._

_A fleeting thought: it's like being with Shoko again._

_"No, I just, um," she thinks quick. "The Ice King... uh, being around his dumb made my head dumb!" She giggles, and-_

_He grins, broad and honest and slaps her palm in a high-five she eagerly returns. "Hah! Jake said that kind of junk never happens, but it totes does!" He tilts his head. "If you're telling the truth, yeah?"_

_She flushes despite herself. She's never met anyone that can see through her like that. Marceline could pick her way past her defenses, but it was a harsh method, almost biting and mean-spirited at times (or so Bubblegum felt). This, this boy is like he just knows her in a way, understands her far more than he should._

_Like she's known him for ages, and he came back after being gone for too long. A sincere friend, maybe even the seeds of_ more _than just a friend (he's young, but he'll grow up soon, and it would be fun to be around that whole time)._

_It's a nice feeling, having a friend even if its weird him just knowing her like that._

_She smiles, more free than she's felt before. "You're fun," she says without thinking about it. "Um. Care to come to my castle for, I dunno, cake and stuff?"_

_He grins wide. "Oh wowza! A castle! Never been to one like that! Except for Ice King. Um. He doesn't count. Bad guys are lame like that."_

_Both of them giggle. She wants to adulate him, praise him, but she's scared to do too much and scare him. She hesitates._

_At her castle, hours later, she plucks up the courage to ramble on about how much of a hero he is._

_There's plenty of time for that, years of it, for her and the boy. Her Finn._

* * *

Things turn, they move and they flow, and often the pattern repeats.

She's seen terrible things so often, too often. Wars over the same stupid, silly, petty things. Death and loss rise and fall, little patterns to break a heart only to fade in due time.

Bubblegum knows that patterns return. But she doesn't often think that the pattern can be a _good_ thing.

Now, now. Here and now. The pattern reveals itself.

Now, Finn gives her the amulet and they bury Shoko's corpse. There is a peace in this finality; bidding goodbye to this last uncertainty; Finn to a life he didn't even remember, Bubblegum to something that has haunted her since before her kingdom became a name recognized over the wilds of Ooo.

It feels nice. Like gears slotting nicely into place. The universe feels a bit nicer.

Bubblegum looks down at him, and she fancies that maybe there was something familiar in him at that very first meeting. Probably not. Just perceptions coloring memory, the fluid _now_ washing over what was.

It doesn't matter, she supposes. It's okay now, whatever else.

And she smiles, and Finn smiles back, shyly holding his hand to her. It's almost courtly in one fashion. In another, it feels sad and trembling, one lonely lost child to another.

Both of them are uniquely alone in the world. Something recognizes that.

Delicate as a giant taking hold of someone far too small to risk breaking them, Bubblegum takes his hand. She squeezes, and it feels fine. And she fancies, that there _is_ something familiar in him, here and now. The look of his eyes, the way he smiled a little too wide. 

She supposes she imagines that he looks so much like Shoko.

 _(The smell of decay in her nose, the tingle on her limbs, and that tiger quietly laying down and never getting up again; and she feels that she_ failed _Shoko, that she could have done something, and now it is all wrong and her friend is_ dead- _)_

And it had been many years, since she had known someone she could comfortable call a friend; there were T-shirts and sleepless nights, yes, but there was tension there, and strife, and things falling apart that could not be pieced together so easily; that lovely girl, Shoko, things had been fun with her, easy like they never were with Marceline or other friends and lovers she'd had.

And then came Finn, and everything with him was lovely and sweet and beautiful, though things went sour after some time because she and her feelings have never been on speaking terms.

And now, the phone call, the amulet under the house, and his lips pushing out the words and unfamiliar emotion wells up in her when she realizes that Shoko died but Shoko _came_ back.

Shoko was sorry, for what she did, and now Shoko had atoned for it, _Finn_ had atoned for it.

She leans down, and she hugs him.

Smiles now, good and safe.

Bubblegum sniffles a little, trying not to cry, and suddenly the coldness and harshness of the last few years with Finn is much brighter.

The world feels nicer.


End file.
